Another dank winter’s morn here in Lincolnshire. Winter has mostly been a con in my lifetime. Ok we do get some freezing cold days in January and February (and June) with the accompanying Christmas card scenes but mostly they are wet and miserable.
Christmas is certainly never white. Considering how far North we are in the geographic scheme of things this is disappointing. I know we have the gulf stream to thank for this and there ain’t much I can do about the gulf stream but it would be very nice to have snowy winters. At least they would feel real.
I can’t imagine living at the equator and getting the same weather all year round. Sipping banana daiquiris from coconut shells whilst slung in a hammock between palm trees sounds idyllic but there does come a time where you want to replace the exotica with home comforts. Log fire. Snuggly warm blankets. Hot mug of cocoa instead of coconut cup.
This is the last proper week of work for many of us before the holidays. Absolutely nothing happens anywhere next week and then it’s the Big Day. We all look forward to Christmas. The annual festival of excess. Wouldn’t do us any harm one year to make it the festival of reasonable indulgence, or near abstinence. Not everyone can celebrate it in the same way, not that that is a reason for not celebrating.
Christmas means different things to different people. For me it is a nostalgia trip and the fact that all the kids come home to their mother (and me obvs). For others it is the symbolic mid winter feast celebrated from the early neolithic period, the heyday of Stonehenge. I’m sure all of you will have different reasons for celebrating.
It isn’t about the struggle to decide what present to get someone. Well it is partly. Don’t do as I did one year and leave it until Christmas Eve afternoon only to find that the one thing the person you love most in the world had asked for was sold out, in ten different shops. Ahem. Then there was the year we said we wouldn’t buy anything for each other. Don’t risk that one!
We do need to somehow strike a balance at this time of year. By this I mean that tomorrow afternoon we are off around the corner for tea and cake. Then I’m taxiing to meet the golfing crowd for the end of season sherbert (again). Friday it’s the Sole Traders Christmas party, starting early afternoon in the Strugglers. Next week it’s the annual Capacity Yorkshire pub crawl and the Morning Star Carols. Then it’s Christmas.
In the words of the immortal Winnie the Pooh, backson.
…
It is dark again. A flicker of light dances in the hearth. The fire is not lit. It is a battery operated candle. Doesn’t feel totes authentic but it is what it is and represents the age in which we live.
The thing that is wrong about a battery operated candle is the absence of the primordial. That feeling you get when gazing into a fire. Dancing flames take you back to the days outside the cave, huddling closer in for protection from the noises in the night.